Exton credit union official appeals theft conviction

NORRISTOWN — A Chester County woman, once the president of a Montgomery County credit union, is making another attempt to overturn her conviction on charges she stole from the business.

Anne L. Clyburn, 47, who was convicted last year by Montgomery County Judge William R. Carpenter of misdemeanor charges of theft and tampering with records and felony charges of unlawful use of a computer in connection with incidents that occurred between August and September 2004 while she was the chief executive officer of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 Federal Credit Union in Plymouth, has appealed her conviction to the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

Prosecutors vowed to fight Clyburn’s latest appeal, in which she argues there was insufficient evidence to convict her.

“Her appeal represents nothing more than a desperate and pathetic attempt to avoid assuming responsibility for what she’s done,” said Deputy District Attorney Steven Latzer, responding to the appeal. “She’s alleging that there was not enough evidence upon which to convict her. Anyone who sat through the trial knows full well that there was more than sufficient evidence to convict her of stealing from the credit union. Undoubtedly, she’s a thief.”

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Carpenter, who during a non-jury trial last June found that Clyburn generated four checks, totaling $1,342, from credit union business accounts to pay dental bills incurred by her husband, previously denied Clyburn’s request for a new trial, prompting Clyburn, of the 300 block of Hidden Farm Drive, Exton, to appeal to the state courts.

After convicting Clyburn of the charges, Carpenter accepted an agreement reached between Latzer and defense lawyer Samuel Stretton and sentenced Clyburn to six months already served to 23 months in jail and three years’ probation. Clyburn, who was chief executive officer of the credit union from 2000 to 2007, is still serving the probationary portion of her sentence.

Clyburn previously served nearly a year in state prison for an earlier conviction related to the same charges. That previous conviction had been overturned on a technicality and Clyburn’s June trial was actually a retrial.

During the June trial, Latzer alleged Clyburn generated four checks from credit union business accounts to pay dental bills incurred by her husband and then altered credit union ledger reports to make it appear that the checks were written for expenses for office supplies and payments to other legitimate credit union vendors.

But Clyburn adamantly denied the theft. Stretton and Clyburn implied employees’ computer passwords were not confidential and someone other than Clyburn, perhaps a disgruntled employee, could have generated the checks and framed her.

Clyburn, who was let go from the institution in February 2007, further implied that the criminal charges, filed against her in 2008, were retaliation for her filing a gender discrimination lawsuit with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission in April 2007.

After Clyburn was fired, credit union officials became aware of financial discrepancies in business accounts and a forensic audit uncovered the crimes, prosecutors alleged.

Clyburn’s June 2013 trial was actually a retrial.

In July 2010, Clyburn, who had earned a yearly salary of $70,000, was convicted by a jury of multiple theft-related charges in connection with the alleged theft of a total of $32,469 and Judge Carpenter sentenced her to a 1-to-7-year state prison term and five years’ probation.

At that time, prosecutors alleged the money with which Clyburn was charged with stealing included unauthorized raises she gave herself during the approximate 6 ½ years she headed the credit union and unauthorized checks she wrote for personal expenses such as the dental bills.

However, in 2012, a state appellate court awarded Clyburn a new trial on a technicality, determining she was not fully aware “of the nature of charges against her” at the time she decided to represent herself during the original trial.

After the first trial conviction, Clyburn served her minimum sentence behind bars before the appellate court granted the new trial.

Faced with a retrial, prosecutors said as part of a “strategic decision” they moved forward only with charges relating to the unauthorized dental expenditures in order “to streamline the case and present the tightest case to the court.”